I honestly just find it weird that you're like well, it's possible, that's good enough for me.

For anyone truly looking at the whole saga, it shouldn't really add up, and along with the other notable issues, should set alarm bells ringing.

It kind of reminds me of that line from Dumb & Dumber were Mary Swanson tells Lloyd the chances of them being together are more like one in a million, and Lloyd says: so you're tellin' me there's a chance?!

I honestly just find it weird that you're like well, it's possible, that's good enough for me.

For anyone truly looking at the whole saga, it shouldn't really add up, and along with the other notable issues, should set alarm bells ringing.

It kind of reminds me of that line from Dumb & Dumber were Mary Swanson tells Lloyd the chances of them being together are more like one in a million, and Lloyd says: so you're tellin' me there's a chance?!

There's always that chance. My buddy on a Tuesday night once was like why should we go out tonight? There will be no chicks out tonight. My response was - well you have zero chance of catching a fish if you don't even go to the water.
But there's always a chance if you do.
He said... so what your saying is that there's always a chance.
I said.... yes there is.

__________________"Is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?"
-Edgar Allan Poe

"...the man and the peaked cap he is said to have worn
quite tallies with the descriptions I got of him."
-Frederick G. Abberline

Look, I'm tired now and losing the will to live (my own fault for posting on a diary thread.) Everyone could be absolutely correct and the diary could be a modern forgery. The odds are in favour of it even. But.....we are all different. What utterly convinces one person might not convince the next. Our brains work differently. So finally I hope...yes it is possible/likely that the diary is a forgery....but can we be 100% certain? Some may be and that's fine. Some may be 90% certain and that's equally fine. I just have a slight doubt that it's a forgery. I don't think it makes me gullible or an idiot. Stubborn maybe. For me to say 'forgery' I want ABSOLUTE PROOF. Undeniable, inarguable, no-one-can-possibly-disagree-with proof. That's me I'm afraid. What we have are a collection of doubts and unanswered questions so far.

Anyway, good night

Come back Fisherman so I can get back to arguing about Cross/Lechmere!

The thing is, is there any good evidence to suggest that the diary was written by Maybrick? No, there's not.

Is there any good evidence to suggest Maybrick was the Ripper? No, besides the very dubious and error-filled diary.

Is there any good evidence to suggest the diary was written after Maybrick had died? There are many clues to suggest a more modern writer, which would eliminate Maybrick instantly.

These clues include the odd modern phrases, the use of a pub's name that didn't exist, the wording of listed items that matches books published a century later, the different handwriting, etc.

Any clues to suggest Maybrick did write it? Well, it's clear that the writer certainly wanted us to believe it was Maybrick, and they use references to the Maybrick's, but is there anything in there that couldn't possibly be gleaned from another source? Anything at all? No, there's not, not to my knowledge.

The only thing tying May to the Ripper is the diary, and the diary is about as questionable a source as a shawl, or a supposedly "dodgy-looking" picture of an old bloke called Lech.

The diary mentions the C5, and one other murder, which eliminates other possible Ripper victims, including the torsos. This is problematic for Maybrick/Ripper advocates, in that they're now tied to the C5 and have to eliminate the other murders as being by a different hand.

So, you've got the C5 as being by James Maybrick. Is there any evidence to suggest he was in London on those dates? I was under the impression that James spent a lot of time going between the USA and the UK, between his company's offices.

So, can we place him in London on any of the C5 dates?

He was a keen cricketer, IIRC, and I'm guessing that there may be some old records at the Liverpool Cricket Club of games held in the year 1888, and whether May was playing or not. If there's any record of him having been on a team during any of those dates, then he's not the Ripper. Has anyone looked into that?

There's always that chance. My buddy on a Tuesday night once was like why should we go out tonight? There will be no chicks out tonight. My response was - well you have zero chance of catching a fish if you don't even go to the water.
But there's always a chance if you do.
He said... so what your saying is that there's always a chance.
I said.... yes there is.

There's always a chance, for sure, lol. That's the kind of positive thinking that keeps the human-race plodding along. If there were no chances, there'd be no hope.

That being said, it's a gulf of difference between possible and probable.

I think it's possible that Scotland is home to a family of plesiosaurs that have evaded detection for thousands upon thousands of years, but I do not think it's probable.

I also think that it's possible that a man called Spring-Heeled Jack really did visit my old street back in the 1800's, jumping across the rooftops and blowing fire out of his mouth, but I do not think it's probable.

I think Justin Bieber could win a Nobel prize for his ground-breaking studies into curing blindness, but I do not think that it is at all probable.

There's always a chance, for sure, lol. That's the kind of positive thinking that keeps the human-race plodding along. If there were no chances, there'd be no hope.

That being said, it's a gulf of difference between possible and probable.

I think it's possible that Scotland is home to a family of plesiosaurs that have evaded detection for thousands upon thousands of years, but I do not think it's probable.

I also think that it's possible that a man called Spring-Heeled Jack really did visit my old street back in the 1800's, jumping across the rooftops and blowing fire out of his mouth, but I do not think it's probable.

I think Justin Bieber could win a Nobel prize for his ground-breaking studies into curing blindness, but I do not think that it is at all probable.

By your own admission much more detective work is needed, more handwriting samples, James's whereabouts, provenance etc

"Spreads mayhem" is one of the biggies for me. I'd strongly contend that the diarist is using the phrase in a rather modern sense of "spreading chaos/confusion"; however, "mayhem" was, until about the middle of the 20th century, almost exclusively used to mean "injury". The meaning seems to have flipped in the middle of the 20th century when sports commentators reported on general carnage and confusion on the field of play. The (physical) carnage morphed into the (metaphorical) confusion, and the definition of "mayhem" in the popular imagination changed.

Tellingly, the phrases "spread/spreads/spreading mayhem" just never turn up in publication I've found before the late 1960s. Hardly surprising, since, taking the earlier definition of "mayhem = injury", the concept of "spreading injury" makes very little sense; it takes the new coinage of "mayhem = confusion" to make sense of the phrase.

"Spreads mayhem" is one of the biggies for me. I'd strongly contend that the diarist is using the phrase in a rather modern sense of "spreading chaos/confusion"; however, "mayhem" was, until about the middle of the 20th century, almost exclusively used to mean "injury". The meaning seems to have flipped in the middle of the 20th century when sports commentators reported on general carnage and confusion on the field of play. The (physical) carnage morphed into the (metaphorical) confusion, and the definition of "mayhem" in the popular imagination changed.

Tellingly, the phrases "spread/spreads/spreading mayhem" just never turn up in publication I've found before the late 1960s. Hardly surprising, since, taking the earlier definition of "mayhem = injury", the concept of "spreading injury" makes very little sense; it takes the new coinage of "mayhem = confusion" to make sense of the phrase.

Doesn't the word mayhem come from the old French, or Anglo-Norman, word "mahaim", meaning mutilation, or the crime of maiming?